Around an hour later, the moon completely blocked out the sun over western parts of Indonesia, as well as parts of the Indian Ocean.

The airline said it rescheduled the flight to depart 25 minutes later, and it is expected to rendezvous with the eclipse's sweet spot almost 700 miles north of Honolulu.

The new moon passed directly in front of the sun over southeast Asia early Wednesday morning, creating a total eclipse of the sun.

For many in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, it was a spiritual experience, and large numbers flocked to mosques to say special prayers.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon gets between Earth and the sun, and the moon casts a shadow over the Earth.

Indonesia’s first solar eclipse since 1983 is seen from Ternate island Indonesia

Partial eclipses were reported at the same time in locations including Singapore, Hawaii and the westernmost parts of the contiguous United States.

"The sun totally disappeared".

"It was very annoying that we couldn't see the sun properly", said David Pratama, 18, as jeers of disappointment rose up in the crowd around him as the moon moved across the sun.

Even with the somewhat unusual timing and rather inconvenient path (for those of us in Canada), we can still watch the eclipse, no matter where in the world we happen to be.

From Indonesia, they will use an instrument called a polarization camera to capture 59 exposures of the Sun in just over three minutes, collecting data on the innermost parts of the sun's volatile, superheated atmosphere. Americans who missed the show via livestreams can look forward to catching the sight in person when the next eclipse is visible across the U.S. in August 2017.